Last month, the DLA held one of its largest events at the Nairobi Arboretum, sign up new members, and to help them tell their stories.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
These workers are required to stare at horrific content for many hours straight with few mental health resources, are largely managed by opaque algorithms, and, crucially, are the workers powering the runaway valuations of some of the richest and most powerful companies in the world.<\/p>\n
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Do you know anything else about data labeling or the human labor behind AI? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at jason.404. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t understand where you\u2019re positioned if you don\u2019t understand your history,\u201d Angela, one of the day\u2019s speakers, told the workers who had assembled there (many of the speakers at the event did not give their full names). \u201cWhen you think of colonialism, we were under British Imperial East Africa Company [\u2026] so literally, we are working under a company. We are just products, part of their operation. Stakeholders, we can say, but we are at the bottom of the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese multinationals are coming to rule and dominate here,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s a very unfortunate supply chain, and my call today as data labelers is to build up on this\u2014as we are fighting for labor rights, we are also fighting for the environment [\u2026] we are fighting big companies. We are fighting the British imperialist companies of today. It\u2019s Apple, it\u2019s Meta, it\u2019s Gemini. Those are the ones we\u2019re still fighting. It\u2019s a call for solidarity and expanding our thinking beyond what we are doing, beyond our labor.\u201d<\/p>\n
In my few days in Kenya earlier this year, where I was traveling to speak at a conference about AI and journalism, it was immediately clear that data labelers make up a significant portion of the country\u2019s tech workforce. Nearly everyone I spoke to there had either been a data labeler (or a content moderator) themselves or knows someone who has. Leaving the airport in Nairobi, you immediately drive by Sameer Business Park, an office complex that houses Sama, a San Francisco-headquartered \u201cdata annotation and labeling company\u201d that has contracted with Meta, OpenAI, and many other tech giants. Sama has been sued repeatedly for its low pay and the fact that many of its workers suffer PTSD from repetitively looking at graphic content. For years, a giant sign outside its office read: \u201cSamasource THE SOUL OF AI.\u201d My Uber driver asked why I was going to a random office building in Nairobi\u2019s Central Business District\u2014I told her I was going to interview a data labeler. \u201cOh, I do data labeling too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Michael Geoffrey Asia. Image: Jason Koebler<\/p>\n
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